A season of promise has unfolded with flashes of speed, near misses, and off-track turbulence shaping one of NASCAR’s most intriguing storylines. Tyler Reddick’s 2025 season unfolded with solid pace and performance, yet the checkered flag has remained just out of reach. Through 24 starts, he has recorded nine top-10s, five top-5s, and even snatched one pole at COTA, where he qualified P1 in March. He sits 7th in the standings with 701 points, just 11 points behind the lead. Reddick began the year with a runner-up in the Daytona 500 and added stage speed at tracks like Martinsville and Darlington, only to repeatedly fall short of victory, culminating in a churn of “what-if” moments on the track. Yet as the playoff looms, every point matters, and the underlying current off-track may be just as pivotal to his trajectory.

Reddick’s seat has been caught in a legal whirlwind for months now. 23XI Racing, co-owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, lost its court-granted injunction that allowed it to race as chartered teams in 2025. That reversal thrust all three of their entries, including Reddick’s No. 45, into open-car status, meaning they must qualify on speed each week and face reduced payouts. Compounding the pressure, Reddick’s contract reportedly contains an exit clause triggered if the team loses charter status, potentially making him a free agent. For a driver who already made the Championship 4 in 2024, the current instability couldn’t be more unwelcome. With his Cup chances hanging on thread both on and off the track, Reddick is striking an unusual tone this week.

Playoff points take center stage as Richmond looms

Talking to FOX Sports‘ Bob Pockrass, Reddick answered with reflective clarity when asked what the team’s number one goal is this weekend at Richmond. “I mean, it’s not really about locking in, it’s just about playoff points,” he said. “Even probably more important than that just winning in general.” Reddick wasn’t deflecting; he was recalibrating. While the field jostles to secure its spot in the final 16, Reddick looked beyond the immediate. For him, playoff points aren’t a consolation; they are currency. As of now, Reddick’s scores on the board are solid enough to be on the cusp of the playoffs, but just lacking a win.

He continued, “Yeah, the big picture side of things, as long as you make the playoffs, you can create your own path to get to the championship. But yeah, doing everything we can to help that. Which wins is great for just checking that off the list, getting a win on the year is also very important too.” Last month at Dover, for example, he had the car to win but said a small execution error knocked him out. His blunt judgment mirrored Denny Hamlin’s candid assessment that, “all of our drivers should win races… I think we’ve underperformed as far as actually winning this year,” creating a tone of internal accountability that sets a high bar for performance in a team labeled as overachieving.

But on the mental side, Reddick described the emotional duality of the campaign in an interview at Dover. “I think it is fair, I think at some degree that we frustrated that we haven’t won for sure, but we’ve been using it as motivation to keep improving and finding speed … We haven’t really backed away from the fact that we haven’t won a race. We are just using it to motivate.” That mindset translated to tangible progress. After lagging behind William Byron by over 120 points mid-season, Reddick climbed back within striking distance, surpassing even his co-owner Denny Hamlin, in the standings as of late.

Pressed on why a win remains elusive, Reddick didn’t mince words, “We’ve lost races due to various number of ways. It’s something that I feel like everyone says, as long as you learn from it, that’s what’s important. But there’s a million ways, probably more than that, to lose these races, a million different ways you can. And yeah, when it’s come time to get the job done or not, we just, we haven’t.” For now, Richmond will test how well that mindset translates under pressure. Reddick qualified P2 for the Cook Out 400 with just 0.087 seconds behind pole man Ryan Preece, demonstrating that he is dialed in when it counts.

Finally, when the topic shifted to why wins matter to him, beyond playoffs, Reddick delivered a heartfelt note, “For me, I know at the end of the day, you can do well in your season without a win, go to the championship without winning… Championships are awesome, but I love winning races. So it is extremely important outside of the playoffs and everything else to win a race this year.” The team’s first Cup win via Wallace at Talladega in 2021, their aggressive development ethos, and Hamlin’s own history as a racer who treasures victories more than titles make the team camaraderie even more special.

With the playoff field nearly set, and contenders like Alex Bowman and Chris Buescher breathing down his neck, Reddick’s approach frames the Richmond weekend not as a season-saver but a momentum builder.

Denny Hamin revisits Richmond’s defining controversy

At Richmond last year, the finish was historic for all the wrong reasons. Austin Dillon’s last-lap move on Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin turned desperation into chaos, and while it delivered a victory, the fallout was swift and severe. NASCAR stripped Dillon of his playoff eligibility, docked 25 points, and suspended his spotter, Brandon Benesch, after incriminating radio chatter surfaced. The decision set a precedent that stretched beyond one race, reshaping how far drivers could push under the playoff spotlight.

Reflecting on the incident now, Hamlin admitted the sanctioning body faced an unenviable call. “I do feel a little bit better about it than we did 12 months ago. I just feel that I think certainly, that was the first time we’ve seen something like that happen, and then NASCAR had a precedent to set in the sense that, ‘what do you do from here?'” For Hamlin, the sting of losing at his home track remains, but so does the lesson NASCAR had to deliver.

The implications remain fresh in his mind as the Cup Series returns to Richmond. “If you let that go, then you open up a floodgate of crazy things that could happen that would be bad for the relevance and the legitimacy of the sport. And so I think everyone probably has a little better understanding now because of the ruling. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with it, but you certainly have a better understanding,” he said. One year later, Richmond stands not just as a battleground, but as a benchmark of NASCAR’s balance between drama and discipline.